Otsego County's region sees largest statewide unemployment increase

April 16, 2013|By Lorene Parshall, Staff Writer

OTSEGO COUNTY — Otsego County sits in the region that saw the most pronounced unemployment rate increase in the state from January to February, according to February data recently released by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.

Otsego County’s unemployment rate rose to 12.1 percent in February from 11.9 percent in January and 11.1 percent in December.

Kathy Bradley, Michigan Works! business liaison, coordinated the March 14 job fair held in Gaylord and was interested by numbers from recent job fairs across the region.

“Job seekers at this year’s fair was down from 520 last year to 246 this year,” Bradley said. “There were 199 possible employers at the fair and 99 possible hires. The Alpena fair had half the people this year as last year and Crawford County was down. I talked to the people in Alpena and we can’t figure out why. Have some unemployed given up? Have some moved away? Some of the good paying jobs required higher skill sets. We have to make sure our unemployed get those higher skilled sets.”

Otsego County is in the Northeast Lower Michigan statistical data region, which also includes Cheboygan, Montmorency, Crawford, Alpena, Alcona, Iosco, Ogemaw, Oscoda and Presque Isle counties.

All three counties surrounding Otsego also saw slight increases in unemployment. Cheboygan rose to 18.1 percent in February from 17 percent in January. Montmorency rose to 18.2 percent in February from 18.1 in January. Crawford rose to 11.2 percent in February from 11.0 in January.

Statewide, unemployment rates edged up slightly in seven regions, declined slightly in six areas and were unchanged in the remaining four, according to DTMB. The largest rate reduction in unemployment was posted in the Detroit-Warren-Livonia Metropolitan statistical region with a rate drop of 1.1 percent.

The Michigan unemployment rate was 8.9 percent in December, but has held steady at 8.8 percent since then. The national unemployment rate just dropped to 7.6 percent.